Excerpt — The Lacemaker's Daughter

I sat outside our cottage as I struggled to finish the piece of lace I had been working on for over a week. If I didn’t finish tonight, it wouldn’t be ready to take to the buyer when he came to the nearby Devon town of Honiton tomorrow. Once a month he made the journey to purchase lace for the ladies in London. Every piece we made had to be sold.

The wind blew all around the cottage, pushing the dried skeletal leaves in front of it, piling them up against the walls and the closed wooden door. The light through the trees that overhung the cottage grew dim, for darkness fell early in November. I sat on the three-legged stool, the large lace pillow stuffed with barley straw heavy on my knees. Low, grey clouds moved quickly above, hurried along by the same wind that blew the leaves around my feet. A woollen wrap helped to keep my arms warm, but without benefit of hose or shoes, my feet were bitterly cold. I had to stop my work often to cover them with my skirt, not that it helped much. My back and shoulders ached from the hours spent bent over the pillow, but my Ma, your great-grandmother and me, all we could do was make the lace and sell it on, for without it our family would starve.

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